1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications, and in particular to systems and methods for providing mobile advertising and directory service to wireless handsets in a rich multimedia format.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a convenience for users and an opportunity for marketers and wireless service providers, the prospect of providing commercial directory assistance that includes promotional information is very desirable. Given the saturation of wireless devices today, the expectation of convenience that users of these devices expect, and the potential revenues, it is not surprising that such a service is very desirable to all involved.
Attempts to provide mobile advertising and directory assistance are impractical and inconvenient, or have otherwise fallen short of expectations. Most prevalent is the ubiquitous 411 directory assistance service that simply provides an audibly communicated telephone number for the requested merchant, along with autodial features. Systems are being developed to supplement this most basic contact information with visible banner advertisements and the like. However, existing systems are typically based on mobile messaging technologies such as WML (Wireless Markup Language) and WAP (Wireless Access Protocol), which provide static responses to directory assistance requests and cannot provide interactive presentations that include audio and animation.
Other systems rely on short range wireless transmission protocols that only communicate with wireless devices that are in proximity to a transmitter.
Still other systems require the user to connect to the Internet to view target advertising and/or directory assistance data. In such systems, a client computer system uploads a request for data to an Internet server. The data is provided as a universal resource locator (URL) address of a particular enhanced server that matches the client's request. The client computer system then launches a web browser and connects to the enhanced server to retrieve the requested data, which may be displayed automatically. Such systems do not allow the client to save or forward the data, and provide only limited capacity to automatically present a series of data elements as an orchestrated presentation including various screens.
Existing systems also fail to provide practical distribution channels for publishing advertising and directory assistance information for retrieval by a mobile station. Rather, one approach is to equip each merchant or store with a transmitting and receiving system for broadcasting advertising messages to certain mobile stations. This approach is ungainly, requiring expensive and redundant equipment that must be maintained and programmed by merchant staff.
There is a need, therefore, to provide current and location-specific mobile advertising and directory information to wireless handsets in a rich multimedia format that is interactive, easily authored, and readily updatable.